It's more than a hobby for many beekeepers. It's about protecting the disappearing pollinators who are directly linked to the food we eat.

Emille Bruneau and his wife keep three hives in the back yard of their home off a busy street in Jamaica Plain. They even have a line of products to show for it --candles and honey jars.

"They are a pretty beleaguered species. We hear in the news of colony collapse. We know a third die every year. So it feels great to be part of this urban sanctuary that provides bees a home," said Bruneau.

Around the world, bee colonies are collapsing. The bees are dying off and no one knows why. But bee biologist Noah Wilson-Rich, who installs and manages hives for homeowners, said their decline is everyone's problem.

"Honey bees pollinate over 130 crops, different fruits and vegetables, but also grains that feed our livestock. So even the meats that we eat come from food that the bees pollinate," said Wilson-Rich.

The dilemma has created a growing colony of beekeepers in unlikely places. They say honey bees are much too busy to mess with humans.

"From where I'm standing honey bees are standing all around me. I just hit one with my hand by accident. They're not aggressive. I'm not getting stung. If you're not a flower, they don't care about you," said Wilson-Rich.

But in Boston, Cambridge and many other towns and cities, beekeeping is either highly regulated or forbidden. And although the 50-year-old law banning it isn't enforced, Mayor Tom Menino's urban agriculture working group is working toward loosening those restrictions.

"We are probably going to have to go neighborhood by neighborhood educating people," said Wilson-Rich.

"I think it's absurd, absurd to have restrictions on keeping hives," said Bruneau.

So while Noah works on vaccines to save the honeybees, Emile is content giving these highly focused creatures a place to do their work.

"To prevent urban backyard farmers from taking care of these species, from being citizen stewards of the bees feels very shortsighted to me," said Bruneau.

Bee biologists say people need to study up before they keep bees.

For instance, bees can swarm, which happens when the queen and her workers leave the colony to find a new home. While not dangerous, it can be alarming.